North Carolina Ranks as the No. 19 State to Produce NFL Players

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Do the states and colleges these players come from correlate to their success? And is there a college that produces more NFL players than the others? A new report by Sidelines has analyzed the data to serve as an official guide to the most successful players’ roads to NFL greatness. Turns out, North Carolina has some pretty good ballplayers!

To find out which states have produced the most NFL players over the years, the report compared the number of players produced to the population of the states to find how many NFL players have been produced by that state per capita (100,000).

Producing current NFL players such as Chris Spencer (C, Tennessee Titans), Jamarca Sanford (DB, Minnesota Vikings), and Damien Lewis (OL, Seattle Seahawks), Mississippi has produced the most NFL players per capita (26.6) than any other U.S. state. In total, the state has seen 788 players head to the professional leagues since 1936.

Nebraska comes second, producing 21.26 NFL players per capita. Compared to their average population of 1,951,996 people, having 415 players hailing from this state since 1936 is an impressive achievement. Some of the most iconic Nebraskan players in NFL history include Pat Fischer (DB), Mick Tinglehoff (C), and Neil Smith (DE).

Having produced 848 NFL players in total since 1936, Oklahoma comes in third place producing 21.25 players per capita. Players from this state who have been drafted into the NFL include Gerald McCoy (DT), Chris Harris Jr. (CB), and James Winchester (LS).

North Carolina has come in 19th out of 50 states. Other states producing high numbers of NFL players include Iowa, Indiana, West Virginia, Wyoming, and Utah, while Alaska has produced zero. My theory on some of these is that there aren't enough people in the area to produce the NFL players.

Rank	State	Number of NFL players (since 1936)	Number of NFL players per capita (p/100,000)
1	Mississippi	788	26.6
2	Nebraska	415	21.3
3	Oklahoma	848	21.3
4	Louisiana	981	21.2
5	Alabama	839	17
6	Iowa	522	16.5
7	Indiana	1055	15.5
8	West Virginia	272	15.4
9	Wyoming	88	15.1
10	Utah	486	14.7
11	Kansas	403	13.8
12	Arkansas	406	13.4
13	Tennessee	924	13.3
14	South Carolina	606	11.5
15	Oregon	454	10.6
16	Kentucky	443	9.9
17	Idaho	183	9.8
18	Michigan	959	9.6
19	North Carolina	1024	9.6
20	North Dakota	72	9.4
21	Pennsylvania	1103	8.6
22	Montana	92	8.5
23	Texas	2515	8.5
24	Ohio	955	8.2
25	Colorado	477	8.1
26	South Dakota	67	7.5
27	Washington	557	7.1
28	Wisconsin	414	7.1
29	Virginia	591	6.9
30	New Mexico	143	6.8
31	District of Columbia	48	6.7
32	Massachusetts	435	6.3
33	Arizona	473	6.3
34	Florida	1327	6
35	Georgia	646	6
36	Minnesota	328	5.7
37	California	2185	5.5
38	Missouri	328	5.3
39	Maryland	317	5.2
40	Hawaii	72	5.1
41	Illinois	637	5.1
42	Rhode Island	43	4.1
43	Delaware	40	4
44	New Hampshire	47	3.4
45	Nevada	100	3.1
46	Connecticut	110	3.1
47	New York	415	2.2
48	Maine	22	1.6
49	Vermont	7	1.1
50	New Jersey	98	1.1
51	Alaska	0	0